Ragnar Dan wrote:comparisons of UGN to a system like that of Soviet Russia

That's just low. We don't have a dictator, nor we force people to be part of the system. We are also ok when people leave. I don't know why you can equate UGN to that.

With people like jeffry and GJ on the team, we are more just like a bunch of folders using the same id and goofing around. That is why I find it very hard to deal with what you wrote.

We do have visions of world domination. Some day, all the downtroden gerbils in the work will unite under a single banner! And then ................................... then the world will know our true power!!! Muh-wah-ah-ah!!!!

What's the best way to stop the Windows SMP client? I killed one an hour or so ago just by hitting the "X" in the upper right corner of the window, and for some reason it caused my OTHER Windows SMP client to dump its WU. WTH???

If you're not folding with your idle computer time you're not part of the solution.

Gerbil Jedidiah wrote:What's the best way to stop the Windows SMP client? I killed one an hour or so ago just by hitting the "X" in the upper right corner of the window, and for some reason it caused my OTHER Windows SMP client to dump its WU. WTH???

I use the Command Prompt so I just Ctrl-C it.

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

The part against FAHmon's absurd errors was a diatribe, and I'd say well deserved. I'd've been embarrassed to put my name on something with the kinds of errors in it I described when I was in high school.

The rest was a deliberate explanation of what had gone on for the 2 people who seemed not to understand the humor, in your case because of lack of context, assumedly, and for the other I think there may be some problems of idiom.

jeffry55 wrote:We do have visions of world domination. Some day, all the downtroden gerbils in the work will unite under a single banner! And then ................................... then the world will know our true power!!! Muh-wah-ah-ah!!!!

Assuming this is on your i7 box, you really should at least check out some virtualization setups just to defend against such problems. You can still run the Windows SMP client if you really want to. Yes, you may be limited to 2 cores on the VM'd version, but it isolates it from your Windows SMP client(s), runs faster when it's Linux, and you can even make it do those automatic snapshots every now and then in VMware's version.

Ragnar Dan wrote:Assuming this is on your i7 box, you really should at least check out some virtualization setups just to defend against such problems. You can still run the Windows SMP client if you really want to. Yes, you may be limited to 2 cores on the VM'd version, but it isolates it from your Windows SMP client(s), runs faster when it's Linux, and you can even make it do those automatic snapshots every now and then in VMware's version.

Yeah I used virtualization on my Q9450. I've been trying out the Windows SMP clients on this rig because the VMware would require 4 instances to use all 8 cores, plus, I have noticed the virtual clients tend to have a little higher priority than my GPU clients and interfere with them. I'm getting over 5k PPD from the current windows SMP clients, which seems pretty good. Sure it's not as high as what I'd get from 4 virtual clients, but the increased headache running 4 vituals plus the interference they cause my GPU clients makes me a bit hesitant to take them on again.

I suppose I could run 2 virtual SMP clients and 1 Windows SMP client. That might work OK with the 3 GPU clients.

If you're not folding with your idle computer time you're not part of the solution.

4 cores, 8 threads are, as I thought you learned, not quite the same as 8 cores.

Anyway, for the time being you could manually lower the VM task's priority, but that will probably still keep the GPU clients starving for CPU time unless there's at least one free core (though maybe a "hyper"-thread is enough). At any rate, you don't need to run all of your SMP clients in VM's, just one or 2 of them (the latter violating my threads != cores notion) would probably help for isolation purposes and testing, etc. It is a new machine after all, ripe for experimentation.

Ragnar Dan wrote:4 cores, 8 threads are, as I thought you learned, not quite the same as 8 cores.

Yes I know the i7 has 4 cores and 8 threads. No need to hang me for one momentary lapse in nomenclature...

I may try the VMware environments, but honestly I've gotten lazy with the SMP clients. When the GPU clients are worth 20k to 23k a day to the SMP clients 5k to 8k potential, (which risks severely impacting the GPUs to get that potential), it's just diminishing returns to try and eek out the extra 3k or so... Still, just for experimentation's sake, I will probably give it a try at some point.

If you're not folding with your idle computer time you're not part of the solution.

For some reason in this thread you seem to be responding to my remarks as though they're personal criticisms. My purpose in mentioning the difference 'twixt cores and threads is that originally, at least, you were getting low performance from the SMP clients, and I don't recall how you had them set up, though I do remember you weren't getting SMP WU's. I assume you fixed whatever config problem you had.

At any rate, GPU's are better, yes, but if you can have both, that's better yet.

FWIW, I've managed to do that even on the somewhat less friendly XP, and it's worth it. It would seem to me with the high performance of an i7, you'd want to make use of its power as much as possible.

Ragnar Dan wrote:For some reason in this thread you seem to be responding to my remarks as though they're personal criticisms. My purpose in mentioning the difference 'twixt cores and threads is that originally, at least, you were getting low performance from the SMP clients, and I don't recall how you had them set up, though I do remember you weren't getting SMP WU's. I assume you fixed whatever config problem you had.

At any rate, GPU's are better, yes, but if you can have both, that's better yet.

FWIW, I've managed to do that even on the somewhat less friendly XP, and it's worth it. It would seem to me with the high performance of an i7, you'd want to make use of its power as much as possible.

'

I respond that way because you come across, to me at least, as being a bit critical

I don't remember exactly what problems I had with the SMP clients originally, but they are running now and the OC to the 3.6 to 3.8 range (I'm heat limited) has gotten them to producing over 5k PPD.

I'm more wondering if there is a procedure someone knows of that would allow me to safely shut down my windows SMP clients so shutting one down doesn't kill the WU in the other. Perhaps I should shut them both down at the same time before one can peform WU homicide on the other? Any thoughts?

If you're not folding with your idle computer time you're not part of the solution.

Well, that's not my intent. I've read you kidding around with others here and assumed you'd be OK if I knocked your UGN efforts similarly to the way I'd done with others. Re-reading my earlier post it does read worse than I meant it to. Oh well.

I've had only a wee bit of testing with the Windows SMP client, and I didn't like it. I tried it on a P4 with hyperthreading, and it worked for a week or so and then it quit meeting deadlines so I killed it. Since it only ran one client with one core, there was no interaction like you're seeing. I wonder if foldingforum.org has information about the problems you've seen. They see all sorts of things there, though it's not necessarily easy to find since the problems of the moment push older ones out of sight and mind, and there are lots of newbies in there all the time complaining about the same things over and over. Anyway, that's where I'd search first were I you, followed by web searches.

Gerbil Jedidiah wrote:Yeah I used virtualization on my Q9450. I've been trying out the Windows SMP clients on this rig because the VMware would require 4 instances to use all 8 cores, plus, I have noticed the virtual clients tend to have a little higher priority than my GPU clients and interfere with them.

The trick to ensure that your VM's don't interfere with the GPUs is to set the vmware priority to idle by modifying this line in your .vmx file: priority.ungrabbed = "idle"

Then set your GPU "Core Priority" on the Advanced tab to "Slightly Higher". This should solve any issues.

I agree that 4 VM's on a single box is overkill. Perhaps you could run 2 VM's on 4 cores, and 1 Windows SMP on the other 4. Then you wouldn't get your conflict.

Ragnar Dan wrote:Well, that's not my intent. I've read you kidding around with others here and assumed you'd be OK if I knocked your UGN efforts similarly to the way I'd done with others. Re-reading my earlier post it does read worse than I meant it to. Oh well.

I've had only a wee bit of testing with the Windows SMP client, and I didn't like it. I tried it on a P4 with hyperthreading, and it worked for a week or so and then it quit meeting deadlines so I killed it. Since it only ran one client with one core, there was no interaction like you're seeing. I wonder if foldingforum.org has information about the problems you've seen. They see all sorts of things there, though it's not necessarily easy to find since the problems of the moment push older ones out of sight and mind, and there are lots of newbies in there all the time complaining about the same things over and over. Anyway, that's where I'd search first were I you, followed by web searches.

OK I will try to read more humor in your remarks then, smiley faces help.

@JP - Thanks for the tips, when I do the VMs again I will try it out.

If you're not folding with your idle computer time you're not part of the solution.

Ragnar Dan wrote:There should probably be a sticky made with all the relevant info.

Yeah yeah, I have been thinking about it for over a year. Just need to get off my ass to write a guide (or two).

Well, I don't mean that you have to do it. Anyone could probably collect the information for himself. The only real problem I see is that unless someone is using it regularly and keeping up to date with new revisions, the page may become outdated.

My next problem is that I'm getting this video card, and I'll probably have to figure out how to fit it in a case too small for it. And I'm not even sure if I have 2 of those 6-pin PCI-e power connectors on a PSU. And then there's the heat. Since it's an open box, it won't have any accessories with it, and I have to get it up and running quick so I can discover whether it's a dud or not and if so get it back to Newegg in a hurry, since there's no manufacturer's warranty. And that means using only LCD displays unless I have a DVI->VGA adapter here somewhere.

Ragnar Dan wrote:My next problem is that I'm getting this video card, and I'll probably have to figure out how to fit it in a case too small for it. And I'm not even sure if I have 2 of those 6-pin PCI-e power connectors on a PSU. And then there's the heat. Since it's an open box, it won't have any accessories with it, and I have to get it up and running quick so I can discover whether it's a dud or not and if so get it back to Newegg in a hurry, since there's no manufacturer's warranty. And that means using only LCD displays unless I have a DVI->VGA adapter here somewhere.

I've thought about buying that very open box item many times. You just might get lucky with the warranty. I bought a Zotac GTX280 open box and it died after 2 months. Zotac replaced it and is honoring the normal warranty! YMMV on that one though for sure...

If you're not folding with your idle computer time you're not part of the solution.

Ragnar Dan wrote:... I'm getting this video card, and ... [s]ince it's an open box, it won't have any accessories with it, and I have to get it up and running quick so I can discover whether it's a dud or not and if so get it back to Newegg in a hurry, since there's no manufacturer's warranty...

I've thought about buying that very open box item many times. You just might get lucky with the warranty. I bought a Zotac GTX280 open box and it died after 2 months. Zotac replaced it and is honoring the normal warranty! YMMV on that one though for sure...

Huh, Monday was the first time I noticed it. How long has it been since you first saw it?

I got screwed out of a discount on it, and I should've just put off buying it. It was $135.01 plus with the code I think it was free shipping, which ended up being nearly $8. I think if I'd have put it off it probably would have been discounted more and I'd have gotten the dang thing (though I think I'll complain about that and see what they do for me since they never gave an explanation of the discount code problem). Or even better, a brand I'm more trusting of than MSI would show up cheap. I also almost bought an 8800GTS but decided it probably wasn't worth it even though after rebate it was something like $85 w/ free shipping, IIRC. That was what I was looking at on Monday.

I'd love to have the warranty thing work for me as it did you, but I've read lots of complaints about MSI from various people and am doubtful. I think I'll be very careful about overclocking.

Ragnar Dan wrote:... I'm getting this video card, and ... [s]ince it's an open box, it won't have any accessories with it, and I have to get it up and running quick so I can discover whether it's a dud or not and if so get it back to Newegg in a hurry, since there's no manufacturer's warranty...

I've thought about buying that very open box item many times. You just might get lucky with the warranty. I bought a Zotac GTX280 open box and it died after 2 months. Zotac replaced it and is honoring the normal warranty! YMMV on that one though for sure...

Huh, Monday was the first time I noticed it. How long has it been since you first saw it?

I got screwed out of a discount on it, and I should've just put off buying it. It was $135.01 plus with the code I think it was free shipping, which ended up being nearly $8. I think if I'd have put it off it probably would have been discounted more and I'd have gotten the dang thing (though I think I'll complain about that and see what they do for me since they never gave an explanation of the discount code problem). Or even better, a brand I'm more trusting of than MSI would show up cheap. I also almost bought an 8800GTS but decided it probably wasn't worth it even though after rebate it was something like $85 w/ free shipping, IIRC. That was what I was looking at on Monday.

I'd love to have the warranty thing work for me as it did you, but I've read lots of complaints about MSI from various people and am doubtful. I think I'll be very careful about overclocking.

I see the deal on the GTX260 about every other week for the past couple of months, but, it does keep getting cheaper. $135 is the cheapest I've seen it. I have a bookmark that looks for all 216 and 240 shader open box GPUs at Newegg. I click it a couple of times a week. I got my GTX280 for 325 back when they were around 450 or more (sep 2008) ( Zotac AMP'd 700MHZ edition). I got my GTX295 a couple of months ago and it was also about $325. I dig the open box!

Yikes though my GTX295 is an MSI. Hope it doesn't crap out on me.

I don't OC my videocards when I fold anymore. At least I haven't OC'd them in a long time. Months... Not much point in OC'ing nowadays anyway. Either one of these cards will scream through the couple of games I am currently playing.

If you're not folding with your idle computer time you're not part of the solution.